A letter containing white powder and a threat was opened at Congressman Allen West’s campaign office in the city this afternoon, prompting a HazMat response and an FBI investigation, officials said.

Firefighters were called to the office, near the 2000 block of North Federal Highway, about 1:30 pm, said Frank Correggio, city fire-rescue spokesman. FBI agents arrived about an hour later.

West rode a tide of tea party support in November to take the U.S. House District 22 seat from incumbent Ron Klein.

According to a statement from West’s office, the envelope was picked up from a Deefield Beach post office box and opened today in Boca Raton by a campaign worker, the only person in the office.

The envelope was stuffed with white powder and a letter that made “derogatory statements” toward West. “The letter also mentioned the word anthrax,” the statement said.

West’s campaign office called police in Boca Raton and the the U.S. Capitol. His offices in West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale are taking precautions when handling mail today, the statement said.

“I am deeply disturbed at this incident which threatened a member of our campaign staff,” West said in the statement. “I thoroughly condemn this act which does nothing but evidence the sick and deranged nature of the perpetrator.”

Outside the campaign office, which is part of a busy strip mall, a half dozen police cars and two fire trucks jammed the parking lot, which was blocked off. No shops near the office were evacuated as of about 2:30 p.m.

White powder scares have become commonplace in Florida during the past decade, but the specter of an anthrax attack especially resonates in Boca Raton, where National Enquirer photo editor Bob Stevens was sickened and killed by a letter laced with the disease in fall 2001.

It was one in a series of attacks after Sept. 11 that left five dead and 17 sick and shuttered government offices and media organizations nationwide.

Last February, federal investigators concluded Bruce Ivins, a U.S. Army microbiologist who committed suicide in 2008, sent the letters. They said it possibly was a warped plot to test a vaccine on his victims.